ROCKY Point canegrower Gary Ludcke is not happy.
While doing his best to avoid storm rains in his push to complete the harvest on his farms at Woongoolba and Norwin, his valiant efforts are being frustrated by ongoing shutdowns at the Rocky Point mill.
“One more day and we would have 75 per cent of the cane cut,” Mr Ludcke said.
“The storms as made it a bit of a challenge at times to get onto the paddocks but it is the breakdowns with the co-gen power plant that supplies the electricity to the mill that is really the problem.”
This year has proven a near perfect season for growing cane between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
“From Christmas onwards it has been great,” he said.
“We have a bumper crop and prices are up. Just about everything that could go right, has gone right.
“The problem now is we cannot get our cane crushed.”
Mr Ludke said this year’s 100 tonne/hectare crop was averaging above 14 ccs, well above the dictrict’s 13.2 ccs long term average. So far he has harvested about 5000t of an expected 7000t crop.
Rocky Point Canegrowers chairman Richard Skopp said the district’s 45 growers were becoming increasingly frustrated by the unreliability of the mill primarily because of breakdowns in the power plant which supplied it with electricity.
“We have produced one of the best crops in more than a decade and with cane prices at about $450/t there is finally a reasonable return,” Mr Skopp said.
“However, maintenance issues particularly in the boilers at the cogeneration plant are resulting in mill shutdowns and are stopping cane from being harvested at its optimum time.
“The shutdowns are costing growers more than $140,000 a day. That adds up to millions of dollars in lost income.
“It is catastrophic. Only half of the crop has been crushed and with the recent rain, the sugar content in the cane will begin to drop.”
Mr Skopp said more than four weeks in harvest time had been lost to breakdowns. He said he understood some $5 million needed to be spent to properly repair the plant.
He said discussions had been held with NSW mills but it appeared logistically impossible to process any volume of cane through another mill even if an agreement could be reached.
Comment is being sort from the Heck Group, the operators of the Rocky Point mill.